


Condemned

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, prince Ignis AU, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Prince Ignis of Niflheim has worn out his favor with the emperor--If the attempted assassination before his deployment to Duscae is anything to go by. Trapped in the hands of the enemy, Ignis finds that the rules of the world he left behind no longer apply...





	1. Chapter 1

It was a bitterly cold day in Gralea, with a wind that cracked the skin and weighed down power lines with ice, and the citizens of the empire’s greatest city had all retreated into their homes to wait it out. Even the imperial keep was not unaffected: Deep in the dark belly of the emperor’s second home in the city, where fires roared and radiators shook the walls, the prince of Niflheim sat in the waiting room beside the emperor’s chambers and adjusted the collar of his jacket with trembling fingers.

He was a young man, barely twenty-two, with brown hair so light it was almost blond and a sharp nose he was told belonged to his mother. It wasn’t his only inheritance: Like his mother before him, and his father when he was the prince’s age, Ignis Aldercapt of Niflheim was the darling of the Empire. His face was plastered over every magazine, painted on recruitment posters and instructional pamphlets, and even—illegally—reproduced on the logo of his favorite brand of coffee. He couldn’t step outside the keep without seeing his own eyes staring back at him, and with the emperor deferring more and more of his daily duties of running the empire to his son, Ignis was starting to take on the role of the public face of the emperor.

Not that he necessarily _saw_ the emperor these days. The last time he’d spoken to his father in the flesh, he was standing in his audience hall, saying his farewells before his father’s trip to Lucis.

Ignis blew into his hands, and his breath steamed in the still air.

When Ignis was young, his father used to take him on tours in the surrounding provinces. Just as their ship would touch down, the emperor would lean over Ignis’ shoulder and whisper, in a voice that carried the promise of a laugh, that “I have brought fire to Niflheim.” It was a horrible joke, worn thin too soon, but Ignis laughed along all the same. It was one of the few times that his father really seemed pleased to have him around.

At twenty-two, Ignis watched the video feed of Insomnia’s remaining boroughs, still smoldering from the attack during the treaty signing, and figured that his father had found a different brand of fire to favor.

“His Radiance has decided that you will be needing on-the-ground experience.” Ravus Nox Fleuret, the newest Lord High Commander of the Imperial army, stood to attention at the door of the waiting room beyond the emperor’s chambers. Ignis tried not to stare at his prosthetic arm, which gleamed with the oil-slick shine of magitech, and focused instead on his human hand. Ravus always went for his weapon when he was distressed or conflicted—an old habit from his early life in Tenebrae. The knuckles of his sword hand were nearly white, and despite the level expression on his face, his bearing was too straight for comfort. But then, most who went into Ignis’ father’s chambers left looking much the same. The acquisition of the crystal had done little to ease the emperor’s mind.

“You will lead a small team of magitech troopers into the region of Duscae,” Ravus said. His hand flexed on his sword hilt. “The prince and his retinue have been spotted in the area. Your orders are to subdue them and bring the prince to Gralea—Alive, if possible.”

“I will certainly try,” Ignis said. “I would rather not continue this recent trend of regicide.”

“Highness.” Ravus’ voice came out tight with warning, and he sighed.

“Thank you, Commander.” Ignis bowed. “Does His Radiance wish to see me in person before I go?”

“Your aircraft is due to depart in fifteen minutes,” Ravus said. It was a marvel that his fingers hadn’t worn grooves in the hilt. “I have orders to see you off personally.”

Ignis gave Ravus his best politician’s smile, and spared only the briefest glance to the door of his father’s chambers. “Of course,” he said. “I am at your disposal.”

\---

Ravus was not one for goodbyes, which was just as well. Ignis wasn’t certain he had it in him to fake sincerity. Subduing the prince was a task given to magitech troopers that couldn’t quite make the cut in the official army—They fell to the Scourge in their blood too soon, no longer able to walk with the smooth motions of their human selves or understand anything beyond the simplest commands. They were used as a means of testing Prince Noctis’ strength, and Ignis wasn’t certain that he didn’t serve the same function.

Regardless of his father’s reasons for sending him to Duscae, he knew that the only way he could return without falling from grace was to come bearing the Lucian prince. He stepped clear of the bay doors and reached for one of the straps that hung from the ceiling, which served as a ballast against the rocking of the ship when it hit the strong winds above the smog of Gralea.

Then he lurched, gasping, his fingers missing the strap by inches.

Ignis turned to the magitech trooper standing at his side. They were an advanced soldier, one with what could almost be called a cognizant memory, used on stealth missions and as guards of state officials. They twisted the long knife they’d buried in Ignis’ side, and Ignis grabbed their head in both hands, one arm wrapped around their neck in a terrible mockery of an embrace.

There was the creak of armor plating grinding together, and the trooper fell, lifeless, to the aircraft floor.

“Manual override,” Ignis said. He held the hilt of the knife steady in one hand, and tugged at the scarf at his neck. “Ignis Aldercapt, Code 100859-C. Change coordinates to Gralea.”

The aircraft piloting monitors remained unchanged, and the ship roared steadily along its path to Duscae. Around him, the lower level magitech troopers rose from their seats. Ignis swallowed panic in his throat and wrenched the knife free.

“You have orders to stand down,” he said, hurriedly tying his scarf tight around his middle. The wound stung, unnaturally so, and despite Ignis’ best efforts, he could feel the warmth of blood seeping through his jacket. “Stand down, I said.”

The troopers continued on, sliding as the ship rocked in the high winds, and Ignis drew his knives.

 

\---

 

“Imperials above us!”

Noctis Lucis Caelum craned his neck as a long, cool shadow passed over the high grasses of Duscae. The magitech airship, the same make as the last three that had found them since Noctis started fishing off the dock of the slough, spouted fire from its massive engine and lowered itself over a circle of rocks in the bog behind them.

“No,” Noctis said. He tossed his fishing rod in the air, letting it disappear into his armiger. “No, I’m not doing this again.”

Gladio, his shield and advisor, rolled his eyes. “I don’t think they care, Noct. Just try not to get hit this time.” He turned to Prompto, who was crouching behind a bush while he loaded suspiciously brittle-looking bullets in his gun. “That goes for you, too, sunshine.”

“That’s the goal, big guy.” Prompto gave Gladio a salute with the wrong hand and cocked his gun. “So. How’re we doing this?”

Gladio opened his mouth to bark orders, then stopped as the bay doors opened.

“Huh,” Noct said, at last.

The figures swaying at the mouth of the magitech airship were fewer in number than Noct was used to: About five or six, all axemen and sword-fighters, with one officer standing shakily in the center. The officer spelled trouble: Human soldiers were always stronger than magitech, and this one had a uniform he didn’t recognize: All white and grey, with a single long stripe of red trailing down from his left side. He had light brown hair, which was swept back in the wind that whipped the marsh into a froth, and his hands were clenched on the hilts of two long, blackened knives.

The officer staggered when he hit the ground, dropping to one knee. Noctis caught Gladio’s signal and warped onto the chest of the closest MT. He warped to the next as Gladio and Prompto teamed up on the remaining three, and as the humanoid soldier hissed and spat its death throes around the edge of Noct’s sword, he looked up to find that the officer was still kneeling.

Noct could see that the officer’s face was drenched in sweat, his breath hitching, hands empty. He also saw, with a disquieting sense of unease, that the stripe of red at the officer’s side was spreading, soaking into the fibers like wine on a pristine tablecloth.

When the officer spoke, it was in a broken, ragged gasp.

“I surrender,” he said. He looked at Noct, and his eyes were glassy with pain. “I surrender.”

Then he fell, in a swift, horrible collapse, into the warm mud of the swamp.


	2. Chapter 2

Ignis was dying.

He knew it to be true in the same dull, vague way he knew when not to speak in a council meeting or look his father in the eyes. It was like the sliding of gazes whenever his father spoke of an eternal life on the throne, the deadened, inflectionless speech of an emperor who'd long demoted him from _son_ to _well-groomed mouthpiece._ There was no point in denying it. It just _was._

Perhaps, Ignis thought, as he was dragged over the grass and laid out on a damp wooden dock, his father had finally decided that an immortal emperor had no need for an heir. It made sense, after all. Ignis would only be a threat to his rule. Much better that he die a martyr at the hands of a foreign prince, giving Niflheim an excuse to put sanctions on what was left of Lucis. 

Hands ripped at Ignis' jacket. He fumbled for the buttons, but his fingers slid uselessly against the fabric and were pushed aside. For a moment, his vision was eclipsed by the face of the prince, all dark hair and bright eyes, and Ignis felt the whisper of hair on his cheek. He shuddered.

"Hang on," Prince Noctis said. 

There was a crack, and Ignis' side went numb. Someone grabbed his shoulders, and Noctis lay a hand on his chest, splaying thin fingers over the ruined fabric of his undershirt. The numbness slowly faded, and with it, the sounds of the swamp rushed to fill the space made empty by pain. Ignis could hear water sloshing against the dock, the croak of frogs in the muck, and the rasp of his own breathing, harsh and far too fast.

"Give it a minute," Prince Noctis said. "People react kind of weird the first time they take one of my elixirs--"

Ignis' stomach heaved, and the hands holding him down retreated, letting him roll to his uninjured side and retch over the edge of the dock.

"Like that," Noctis said. 

"Yikes," said someone else, drawing out the _s_ in a hiss. Ignis' arms trembled as he tried to push himself up, and a large shadow moved over him. 

The pain was ebbing away, replaced by a tightness in his injured side like skin going dry from the cold, but Ignis was too weak to protest as he was lifted to his feet and slung under the arm of Prince Noctis' Shield, Gladiolus Amicitia. 

"Well, fuck," Gladiolus said, succinctly summing up Ignis' life to that point. "You know who this is, Noct?"

Noctis stepped before Ignis, once more blocking off the fields of Duscae with his own narrow, worried face. He bit the inside of his cheek, and Ignis muzzily considered informing him that he'd seen Noctis do the same in almost every interview since he was fourteen.

"Terrible habit," Ignis slurred. 

"Yeah," Noctis said. His lashes were surprisingly dark. Ignis tried to lift his hand to see if they were real, but his arm was trapped by Gladiolus, and he couldn't muster the strength to wriggle free. "I guess we'll have to call Cor."

 

\---

 

There were protocols to capturing a prisoner of war in Lucis, but it seemed that the prince and his crew knew only half of them. They forgot to put him in cuffs until they were halfway up the hill from the Slough, with Ignis draped between the three of them like a doll. They kept staring at him sidelong, as though he were about to either faint or explode, and Noctis and Gladiolus kept having whispered arguments over where they were supposed to _take him._

"What did they do to him?" asked the third member of their party, a young man named Prompto. He tripped behind the others, fiddling with his gun, which Ignis was fairly sure was an illegal weapon in Lucis. "Why'd he come here already fucked-up?"

"Probably a trap," Gladiolus said.

"It was," Ignis said, and Noctis looked at him sharply. "For both of us, I assume."

"We'll talk more when Cor gets here," Gladio said, and that was that. They trudged up the hill in silence, gnats rising from the grass in great buzzing clouds. The thin strip of the road curved above them like a blessing, and when they reached the squat motel at the top, Ignis was too exhausted to do more than drag his feet along the asphalt.

He figured the prince and his men didn't know much about capturing the enemy, having grown up in Insomnia. Prisoners of war weren't supposed to be carefully walked into a musty motel room, uncuffed, and divested of their jacket. They weren't supposed to be sat down while the prince--the future king--of Lucis summoned clothes from the empty air and held them up, looking from them to Ignis with a calculating gaze. They weren't supposed to be left alone in a bathroom, either, with plenty of sharp implements on hand that could be used as weapons in a pinch. 

That, at least, the prince and his men remembered. Gladiolus stumbled in a minute after Ignis was left in the bathroom, where he silently sat on the toilet and looked away as Ignis peeled off his filthy uniform. It was ruined beyond repair, if not by mud then by the blood that had seeped so far through that even his trousers were stained. Ignis pushed them aside and stepped into the shower, where he fell to his knees with a thud that rattled the glass.

The door slammed open. He looked up through an oncoming wave of dizziness to find Noctis at the bathroom door, red-faced and furious as Gladiolus gently pushed him back. Ignis tried to pull himself to his feet, slipped, then turned on the tap instead. He sat down on the floor of the shower and let the water beat down on him, closing his eyes as steam fogged the glass. It took him a minute to gather the courage to check his side, but when he did, he found the skin there clean and unmarred, with only the faintest sliver of a scar. He spent a moment tracing the line of it with his fingers, and wondered just what Noctis had done. 

Gladiolus had placed a towel on the floor next to the shower door, along with a pair of trousers and a black shirt. Not Ignis' usual style, to be sure, but they would do. He didn't comment when he found clean underwear tucked in the folds, and changed in the shower while Gladiolus pointedly stared down at his phone.

They forgot to bind his wrists again. Not that Ignis could have done anything, swaying from blood loss and leaning heavily on Gladiolus just to get through the door, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered. Ignis collapsed on one of the empty beds without being prompted, and Noctis stood from his chair, hurriedly shoving his phone in his pockets.

"Cor isn't here yet," he said, as though that meant anything. 

"I see," Ignis said.

There was a long silence. Prompto looked from Ignis to Noctis and made a frantic gesture with his hands, mouth tight in a strained grimace. 

"Oh," Noctis said. "Oh, right. Right, so. You lost a lot of blood."

Ignis risked a wry smile. "I suspect I have."

Noctis made a strange, choked sound in the back of his throat and scurried for the kitchenette. Gladio, sitting by the stove, gave Prompto a meaningful look, and Prompto shrugged. He threw himself onto the bed a few feet from Ignis, drumming his hands on the thin coverlet.

"You're the prince, huh?" he asked. "You don't look like you do in the news."

"Makeup," Ignis said. Prompto nodded sagely. "And considerably less stabbing."

Prompto and Gladio had another curious, silent conversation, made up of raised eyebrows and twitching lips. At the stove, Noctis stuffed what looked like a full bowl of water in the microwave and frowned at the door.

"About that," Gladio said. The microwave started to hum and shudder. "You want to explain why you dropped out of an MT carrier half dead?"

Ignis watched in fascination as Prince Noctis stared intently at the microwave, gaze flicking towards Ignis every few seconds. "I have a choice?"

"Not really."

Well, that was to be expected. Ignis sighed. "If I may make an educated guess, the knife in my side had something to do with it."

Gladiolus rolled his eyes. "And the knife came from..."

"A weapons' manufacturing company, no doubt." Ignis gave Gladio a brittle smile. "But I suspect the order to have me killed came from my father."

There was a muffled curse, and Ignis leaned over as Noctis leapt back from the counter, the bowl slipping off the edge. A cup of instant noodles fell with it, and Noctis nearly slipped in the mess as he danced out of the way. Ignis rose to his feet only for Gladio to push him down again.

"One prince at a time," he said.

"Your dad had you _killed?_ " Noctis asked. 

"No, I feel that I'm quite alive at the moment, thank you." Never mind the confusion in Noctis' eyes, or the guileless anger that seethed behind it. Never mind the spark of jealousy that always rose to the surface when Ignis heard of the Lucian prince, laughing with his father in the tabloids, going to public schools, calling his father _dad_ instead of his formal title. Ignis had never called the emperor _dad_ in his life.

"But why?" Noctis knelt to clean up the noodles, but was shoved aside by Gladio. He shuffled over to take his Shield's former seat. "What's the point?" 

Ignis wondered if he _had_ died on the Slough after all, and was tumbling head-first into a new and unsettling dimension where princes made instant noodles and had no notion of basic politics. He cleared his throat, trying to buy himself a moment to think, and smoothed his hands over his new baggy pants.

"You know that His Radiance hopes the Crystal will bring him immortality," he said, slowly.

"I know he's insane," Noctis said.

Ignis ground his teeth together. "An heir would only complicate matters," he said. "And I have not been entirely supportive of his recent actions."

"We heard you on the radio a few weeks ago," Prompto said. 

"Yeah," Gladio grunted, from the kitchen. "You said a lot of pretty things about reparations and regret. Didn't think Nifs could _feel_ remorse."

Noctis said nothing. The radio interview they spoke of was Ignis' last, made while he was still reeling from the news of his father's wild attempt to claim the Crystal as his own. Ignis was returning from a visit to Ravus in the hospital, left delirious with anesthetic and mumbling about fire, and had stepped out to find a radio crew ready and waiting. They demanded his view on the collapse of the peace talks, and Ignis had answered honestly. It was not, according to those he spoke to in his father's council, the wisest move to make.

"I was given orders to bring you back to Gralea," Ignis said, and Noctis' fingers curled in a fist. "But I expect I was meant to die at your hands. My death would be enough for those who have a measure of sympathy for your crown to aid in your capture."

Noctis scrubbed a hand over his face. "Fuck."

"Indeed." Ignis didn't envy Noctis his position. Wanted by the empire, left with no base of operations, and now with an unwanted prince quite literally dropped in his lap. Anyone would be frustrated.

"I'm so sorry," Noctis said, and Ignis' mind went blank.

"Pardon?" he asked, in a voice that sounded strange to his own ears.

"I'm sorry," Noctis said. "No one should have to go through that."

Ignis opened his mouth to speak, but his protests died on his tongue. Instead, he sat in silence, numbly accepting the cup of scalding hot noodles from Gladio and watching the prince of a fallen country flash him a rueful smile before taking his own. The heat prickled the skin of his hands, and Ignis turned to catch the sun sinking behind the thin curtains of the window, a red spot low in the sky, bright as an airship hovering over the plains.


	3. Chapter 3

Ignis expected to have a restless night. No one ever slept comfortably in the hands of an enemy, most certainly not when they were given a hard, uncomfortable motel bed with three wary men taking watch at his side. Yet as soon as Ignis' head hit the lumpy pillow, he was effectively gone to the world. Sleep took him with the force of a blow, and when he woke, it was with his hair a disheveled mess against the mattress and his arm dangling off one side of the bed. He sat up, scrubbing a hand over his face, and saw that Noctis was watching him from the small chair and table set by the window, chugging an energy drink with the slow, grim determination of a man who would much rather be in bed.

"Cor's stuck in Costlemark," he drawled, dropping his can onto the tabletop. "And all our fortresses have squatters in 'em."

"It _is_ a predicament," Ignis admitted. Good gods, were they having this conversation now? He'd expected, after Noctis' measure of sympathy the night before, that the inevitable decision between Ignis' return to the empire or his execution at the hands of the king's men would at least wait until he'd pushed the sleep from his eyes. 

"So, I mean, it's probably annoying," Noctis said. He was looking to the window, refusing to meet Ignis' eyes. Ignis braced himself. "If you stayed with us, we'd probably get _more_ heat from the empire. It'd be constant fighting, which, I mean. I'm used to that."

Ignis raised his eyebrows. How used to it could he be, safe and coddled in the walled-off city of Insomnia for most of his life? Still, he saw the point. It would be far too inconvenient for him to personally drag a royal prisoner all over creation, not when he had his own life to safeguard.

"But it's the only choice we have," Noctis said.

Ignis waited. When Noctis refused to clarify, he leaned forward on the bed. "What is the only choice, your highness?"

Noctis gave him a bewildered look. "Coming with us," he said.

Ignis froze.

The door opened, and Prompto and Gladio came in, bearing cardboard boxes with cheery labels and cartoon chocobos on the front. Gladio only glanced Ignis' way once before dropping his box on the table, and Noctis flipped it open to take out what looked like the largest, most unappealing attempt at a chocolate pastry Ignis had ever seen.

"Two for one!" Prompto said, taking a pastry of his own. He and Noctis bumped fists, and Prompto collapsed in the other chair before Gladio could reach it. "How's prince charming?" He yelped, and Ignis only just caught Noctis' foot swinging back from a sharp kick.

"If you mean me, I am well," Ignis said. "But I don't believe I understand your reasoning. Wouldn't it be more convenient to turn me in to the empire for, oh, the rights to Insomnia, or--"

"Not fucking likely," Gladio said. Noctis rubbed off a spot of chocolate on his lips.

"If your dad tried to," he said, and stopped. "If he meant."

"If he ordered my assassination," Ignis supplied.

"Yeah," Noctis said. "Then why would he give us what we want? Anyways, if he wants you dead, we'd be handing you over to die."

"It would still benefit you," Ignis said. "As a symbol of your mercy--"

"Giving you back to a murderer isn't mercy," Noctis said. 

"Too heavy, guys," Prompto said, through a mouthful of chocolate. "Tone it down like, eighty percent."

Noct pushed Prompto's shoulder, and Prompto pushed back. "We're heading for Cape Caem," Noctis said. Gladio narrowed his eyes, and Noct's lips parted slightly. "I mean. Somewhere. On the coast."

"Nice."

"Shut up. Anyways, when we get there, we, uh. We know some people who can like. Find somewhere for you to stay. Until it all blows over, I mean."

"Unless you wanna go with us to Altissia," Prompto said. This time, both Noctis and Gladio glared. "What? He already knows like, half our plans, thanks to Noct."

"Which means he _can't_ go back now," Noctis said, looking Ignis right in the eyes. He lifted a puffed pastry with neon red cherries shoved in the middle and held it out. "Come on, your highness. Time to get started."

 

\---

 

Traveling with the prince of Lucis, Ignis learned, was an experiment in patience.

The first thing Noctis did was tow Ignis to a truck parked on the corner of the motel parking lot. The woman who set up shop there had a line of boxes at her feet, all stuffed with second-hand clothes. Noctis pawed through them, occasionally lifting up a shirt for Ignis' inspection.

"You'll need to go undercover," he said, passing Ignis a pair of black jeans. "I'm pretty good at that. I used to walk around Insomnia all the time, and no one even looked at me. You kind of. Um." He looked Ignis up and down. "Can you ever like, turn it off?"

Ignis cocked an eyebrow.

"You know," Noctis said. "The." He gestured vaguely. "The prince thing."

"No," Ignis said. "I don't believe I've ever _turned it off._ "

"Huh." Noct passed Ignis a purple coeurl print shirt, which looked like it would not only fit him, but was the sort of style that no self-respecting son of Niflheim would dare to try.

Ignis loved it. 

The pants were a little tight around the thighs, but they were serviceable, and Ignis' boots at least could still be worn. When he was suitably disguised, Noctis sat him down in the booth of a diner that served terrible salads and fries that were more oil than potato, and popped open a can of gel. 

"Turn towards me," Noctis said. He kneeled on the booth chair, and the only way Ignis could turn was to set his boots on either side of Noctis' feet, boxing him in. No one seemed to mind--Prompto and Gladio were going over maps on their phones, arguing about the road they needed to take to reach the cape.

"I'm gonna do something about your hair," Noctis warned, and then he was touching him. Slightly cool fingers, slick with gel, pushing and kneading at the sides of Ignis' ears. Ignis held himself stock still, trying to tamp down the heat that rushed to his face at such a simple, unassuming touch. Noctis was treating him as he did Prompto or Gladio, with that strange irreverence that only this generation of Lucians seemed to have, and Ignis tried not to let on how _nice_ it felt to have someone carding through his hair, his movements just short of a caress. Ignis closed his eyes, but opened them with a start when Noct's palm covered his forehead, pushing up his bangs.

"This might work," Noctis said, and a comb dropped into his hand with a burst of magic. Ignis jumped, a foot bumping Noct's hip, and Noct lifted both hands.

"It's just my armiger," he said. 

Ignis had heard of the magical plane in which the kings of Lucis kept their weapons, but had never considered the possibility that they might keep something as plain as a comb in the same space that carried an ancestral blade. He curled his fingers in the rough denim of his jeans as Noctis leaned in again, brushing Ignis' bangs back.

"Funny thing," Noctis said. He held Ignis still with a hand on his forehead, and Ignis tried not to lean pathetically into it. "I used to listen to your radio interviews all the time."

"I had to listen to yours as well," Ignis said. Noct's lips pinched together, and he dipped his free fingers in the gel again.

"Used to turn the radio on in my room when I was doing homework," he said. "You always sounded so perfect. You never fucked up your lines, you took photos like you were born posing... I kind of hated you."

Ignis suppressed a snort. Noctis' interviews were always set shortly after Ignis' aired, as though the Lucian PR department had a personal vendetta against Ignis. Noctis always sounded unscripted, unguarded, cracking terrible jokes and going shy at the oddest moments. When Ignis was young, and his tutors played the radio to analyze Lucian attempts at propaganda, Ignis had to school himself not to laugh so as not to receive a ruler to the palm. 

"Was this kind of thing going on then?" Noct asked. "With... your dad."

Why in the gods' names did Noctis keep going back to the subject of Ignis' father? "I was a child," Ignis said. "I was a threat to no one."

Noctis set the comb down and ran both hands along the sides of Ignis' head, spiking his hair. Ignis closed his eyes, and Noct repeated the motion, slower this time.

Then he pulled away, and Ignis looked to find him sitting back on his heels, ears pink, dark hair swept over his eyes. He looked lost, almost shocked, and Ignis shifted so that his elbows rested on his knees in a decidedly unprincely gesture.

"You know," he said. "When I was twelve, I heard that you'd rescued a litter of kittens and kept them in your room. You brought them to a radio show, and they kept crying and making you laugh."

"In a way," he added, with a faint smile, "I may have hated you, too."

Noctis smiled back.


	4. Chapter 4

“And I said, if my Harold was gonna run off and sulk in the swamp like a goddamn caveman ‘cause _her_ Susan told him his casserole wasn’t as good as Ma’s, then it was only fair for her Susan to go after him and drag him home.”

Ignis stood against a lamppost a few feet from a gas station parking lot, where Noctis Lucis Caelum—a man who should by all accounts have been wearing a crown and holding court in the Citadel of Insomnia by now—was nodding sympathetically while a woman in a denim dress rambled her way to an uncertain conclusion. Gladio blocked Noct off from Ignis for the most part, lounging by a broken-down truck with Prompto, but from what Ignis could tell, Noctis was actually trying to interpret what the woman wanted. 

“So he’s probably near the haven?” Noct asked, pointing towards a distant plume of smoke. The woman nodded, twisting her purse in her hands. 

“I rode my bike as far as I could go, but we’ve had them dumb-ugly voreteeth lately, so…”

“Got it.” Noct smiled, and the woman’s face twitched, as though she’d forgotten what a smile looked like. “We’ll do our best to bring him back.”

Ignis stared after Noct as he crossed the parking lot, his shoulders strangely tense and straight, his lips thin. Prompto waved to Ignis, and Ignis followed on his heels as the others trailed after Noct, hopping over the fence at the end of the road and into the spongy grasses of the marsh.

“It’s been two days,” Gladio said, picking his way around a puddle. “He’s probably dead.”

“I know.” Noct’s voice was short.

“Pardon,” Ignis said, before he could cake even _more_ mud on his ill-matching boots. “But why aren’t we leaving this to the authorities?”

“What authorities?” Prompto asked. Gladio shot Ignis a look that was heavy with distrust, as though Ignis had personally walked this Harold into the swamp. 

“Not like Niflheim sends deputies,” Gladio said.

Ignis opened his mouth to argue, but no words came. It was true that funds had to be reallocated of late, focused solely on keeping the roads maintained and seeing to the larger cities in Niflheim and Tenebrae. It was easy to cut corners when you never had to visit those corners personally, and Ignis tried to remember if anything regarding a police force in the outlands had crossed his desk at all. By the time it got to him, it was likely a footnote in a larger report, a code written in shorthand to save room for more pressing matters.

The muck of the swamp sucked at his boots as he lagged behind Noctis’ retinue. Somewhere in the brambles and marshwater, there was a man who was brother to the woman lingering by the gas station behind them—or his body, already sinking into the murky waters of the slough. 

The search was slow, with Noctis, Prompto, and Gladio making a lopsided grid in the land surrounding the haven. They were barely out for more than an hour, poking through bushes that sent clouds of gnats into their eyes, when Ignis heard the telltale roar of an MT carrier ship.

“Above us,” he said, and Noctis groaned. Gladio ran to Noct, summoning a shield, and Prompto skidded to his other side. Only Ignis, trained for single combat and unused to formations that did not involve programmed paths for MTs to take, stayed where he was. 

Which was why, when the doors of the carrier opened to reveal a sniper surrounded by assassin-class MTs, no one was close enough to catch him when the first bullet hit his shoulder.

“Shit,” Noctis said, and Prompto took out the sniper with two shots, grinning as the MT’s body slid down off the edge of the carrier. The assassins tumbled out of their own accord, their arms swinging, blades whistling through the air. Every one of them turned towards Ignis, who cursed and reached for his knives.

Which weren’t there. Of course.

“Gladio!” There was a flash of light, and Noctis appeared at Ignis’ side, holding what looked like—dear gods, that was a can of Ebony. He crushed it in his fist, but the liquid that poured over Ignis’ shoulder was bright green, sinking into his skin with a tickling burn like peroxide over a cut. Ignis gasped as the bullet wormed its way out of his shoulder, and Noctis pushed him to his knees, keeping his own body between Ignis and the MTs.

Gladio ran to Noct’s side just as an assassin lunged for him, drawing his shield over Noct’s body with a screech of iron on steel. Prompto fired a shot over the MTs that sent a web of red light over them, making their fuses shudder and their limbs slow, and Noctis warped out from the safety of Gladio’s shield, landing on one assassin with a sword in their throat.

“One!” he shouted.

“Stay here,” Gladio said, dragging Ignis into cover. He watched Noctis warp to another MT, then another, cheerily counting his kills. Prompto watched Noct’s back, taking out anyone who got too close. 

“I can fight, if necessary,” Ignis said, and Gladio grunted.

“Sure,” he said. “Give the Nif a sword. Great idea.”

Noctis and Prompto made embarrassingly short work of the MTs. By the end of it, the final count was Prompto at seven, and Noctis at twelve, with Gladio bringing up the rear at two. They all climbed up to the relative safety of the haven afterwards, letting the MTs crumble to dust and armor in the grass behind them.

“They kept going for you,” Noct said, brushing a hand over Ignis’ shoulder. His shirt was ripped, but the skin beneath was smooth and unmarred. “It’s like they didn’t even want to fight me.”

“Then we can assume that the Empire suspects I am alive,” Ignis said. Noct scowled. “All MTs have my signature in their logs. It would be a minor thing to turn my assignation from _commander_ to _target._ ”

Beside them, Gladio and Prompto were summoning what looked like a mountain of camping supplies from the armiger, struggling under a sea of tarp and tent poles. Noctis stayed where he was, a warm hand on Ignis’ shoulder. 

“When this is over,” he said, “I’ll kick the emperor’s ass a second time, just for you. Okay?”

Ignis laughed. Noctis didn’t so much as crack a smile, only turned to watch Gladio pitch the tent, and it wasn’t until much later, when the fire was lit and the tent flap was pinned up to reveal Gladio and Prompto playing cards on a pile of sleeping bags, that it struck Ignis that Noctis was serious. He stood awkwardly by an empty chair, trying not to stare as Noctis played on his phone, and struggled to unravel the strange, twisted ache in his chest at the thought.

Still, when Gladio took out the noodle bowls at sunset, Ignis had to speak up.

“Surely one of you knows how to cook,” he said, as Gladio lined up four bowls on a cook table that showed an embarrassing lack of wear. Gladio and Prompto exchanged guilty looks, but Noctis only shrugged.

“We always had someone at the Citadel,” he said. He glanced up at Ignis. “Why, do _you_ know how?”

Ignis bristled at the implication. “Of course,” he said. It was one of the first skills he learned, after he began to fall from favor with his father. It was easier to handle food himself than rotate taste testers, never certain who was being bribed and who wasn’t, or which chef he could trust for how long. 

Noct got up, and waved a hand. A pile of fresh ingredients tumbled over his hands and onto the stone, making him drop to his knees to retrieve them before they rolled off the haven and into the darkness.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit, I was trying to just summon like, an apple. Fuck.”

“That’s what you get for not keeping your armiger in order,” Gladio called from the tent. Ignis knelt to help Noctis with what looked like a deeply unsettling number of hot peppers and wrapped anak steaks, and lined them up on the counter. 

“Now,” he said, checking the oven for gas. “For this, I _will_ need knives.”

“I’ll help,” Noct said, and Prompto snorted. Ignis raised his eyebrows, but Noct didn’t offer an explanation, only stood close enough for their shoulders to touch, summoning a kitchen knife in one hand. He smiled up at Ignis, and the ache in Ignis’ chest returned, a dull pain that pulsed with his heart. “Tell me what you need.”

“Ah. Dice the peppers?” Ignis sloshed a bit of cooking oil in the pan on the stove and watched as Noctis got to work. “You’re an agreeable sort, aren’t you?”

“What? No.” Noct’s cheeks flushed in the light of the fire. “That’s like, the opposite of what people call me, trust me.”

“Then why did you help the woman at the gas station?” Ignis asked. “Her plight is pitiable, yes, but you have no reason to put your plans on hold for her.” _Or for me,_ he didn’t say, but by the look in Noct’s eyes, he already knew.

“Kings are supposed to serve their people,” Noct said. “That’s how it works.”

“Yes, but on such a small scale?”

Noct shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean. Dad kind of.” His eyes pinched at the corners, and his jaw shifted. “He forgot the small stuff, sometimes. Maybe you have to, but from what Cor said, it’s what caused… you know.” He waved a hand towards the general direction of Leide, where the city of Insomnia lay dark. “If he’d paid more attention to the people under him, instead of worrying about me, maybe they wouldn’t’ve gone to Niflheim.”

He fell silent, shoving a handful of diced peppers Ignis’ way. 

“I know it’s too little too late,” Ignis said, tossing the peppers in the pan, “but I _am_ sorry for your loss. The emperor used to speak well of King Regis. He seemed an admirable king.”

“Maybe,” Noct said. His hands went flat over the knife. “He was a good dad, anyways.”

“We did you all a disservice, breaking the peace treaty,” Ignis said. Noct looked at him then, gaze sharp, and Ignis’ hand tightened on the pan. 

“Did you know?” Noct asked. “In your interview on the radio, right after, it sounded like…”

“I had no notion,” Ignis said. “I don’t expect you to believe me—“

“I do,” Noct said. He twisted towards Ignis, looking right through him, as though examining every innermost thought and weighing it against his own. “I mean, if you can’t believe a prince from an enemy nation, who _can_ you trust?”

Ignis smiled at that, and Noctis slid a hand over his, the pads of his fingers gliding down Ignis’ knuckles. Then he pulled away, leaving Ignis breathless before a pan of peppers that were already beginning to smoke.

“Oh, _hells._ ”


	5. Chapter 5

They never did find the missing man, in the end. They did find the remains of an old, brick-like phone, which Noctis delivered to the woman at the gas station with a quiet, awkward attempt at comfort that fell apart under her silent, deadened gaze. Ignis watched the woman clutch the phone in both hands and bob her head as Noct spoke to her, her eyes red-rimmed and damp.

When he turned from her, Noct's expression was shadowed, and he looked up at the gathering storm overhead and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Camping again tonight," he said.

Prompto gave Gladio a cagey look. "Didn't take the reward money, huh?"

Noct's shoulders hunched, and he stalked off past the three of them without a word.

The sky opened up around noon, which left them scrambling to assemble the tent while Noctis created a protective wall over them that stuttered and flickered, occasionally letting rain through in short, miserable bursts. Ignis was soaked through in seconds while Gladio and Prompto flattened the tent floor on the inside, and Noct wasn't much better off, his hair hanging limp in his eyes as water ran down his cheeks and slid along his neck.

"Leave your clothes when you get in," he said. Lightning flashed across the sky behind him, and the crack and boom made him stumble. "I'll get towels out of the armiger for us."

Ignis wondered if he'd heard him wrong. Admittedly, while the local dialect of Niflheim differed slightly from Lucian, it was still the same language. He hadn't meant--Surely he didn't mean Ignis to--

Noctis crouched in front of the tent and started unlacing his boots. The wall above them flickered again, and he cursed as a torrent of rain sloshed over his bowed back.

Then, keeping his back carefully turned from Ignis, Noct slowly stripped off his shirt.

The first thing Ignis saw was the scar. Pink and raised and hardly beautiful, it crossed his back from shoulder to hip, spreading out like the vein of a leaf as it reached the base of his spine. Ignis knew that Prince Noctis had been injured by a daemon as a child, caught just outside the border of Insomnia, but the proof of it made bare before him was sobering. He wanted to step forward, to reach out and... and touch it, splaying his hand over the ridges of old tissue, along the muscle that bordered the scar, the damp skin made ashen by the rain. 

Noct thrust his hands into the tent, summoned a thick towel, and let it drop to the floor. Then he stepped in, naked but for a pair of soaked briefs, and summoned a second towel. He wrapped it around himself like a massive, terry cloth blanket, and collapsed out of view. 

Ignis stood at the mouth of the tent, rain dripping down his collar, and stared at the slightly damp towel on the floor before him.

"Move it, your highness," Gladio said, glancing over his shoulder from where he sat with Prompto, playing a game on his phone. "We'll dry your clothes out later."

Ignis hesitated. Noct rolled into view, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets and towels, and blinked up at him. 

"You already saw _my_ ass," he said, as though this were at all a reasonable thing to say. 

Ignis sighed and started unbuttoning his shirt.

Prompto whistled. "What?" he asked, when Noct lunged at him, armed with a camp pillow. "I smack your ass and whistle like, all the time."

"Yeah, but you're my best friend," Noct said. "That's different."

Ignis considered this, tried the sentence out in as many contexts as he could muster, and gave up. Perhaps it was an Insomnian custom he wasn't aware of. Instead he stepped out of his clothes, leaving them in a heap at the tent flap, and climbed inside.

"Fucking finally," Gladio said. He leaned over as Ignis took a towel from Noct, and hurriedly zipped up the tent. "Dunno how Noct kept the wall up that long."

"Is that particular form of magic difficult?" Ignis asked, trying to twine the towel around his lanky body with some measure of success. Noct stared at him, mouth slightly open, and blinked.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess."

"He guesses." Gladio huffed. "Dad says--said it takes more willpower than he has in him to summon a wall for more than a few seconds. You need the ring on your side for that shit."

Ignis stared at Noct, who flushed darkly and rolled away. One of the blankets peeled back over his shoulder, and Ignis caught a glimpse of the scar, small tendrils creeping out from under the fabric.

When he sat, gingerly clambering into the far corner of the tent, Noctis rolled back a little and lifted the edge of his blanket.

"Get in," he ordered.

Ignis looked up at Gladio. Gladio stared back. Behind Gladio's considerable bulk, Prompto made a suggestive noise in the back of his throat.

"Perhaps," Ignis said. "I should..."

"Get in," Noct said again, and Ignis caved. He sank down, all too aware of the stares boring a hole into Noct's back, and jumped when Noct swung the blanket over his head.

"It's the middle of the day, your," Ignis trailed off at Noct's stern glare. "Noctis."

"Yeah, but I'm exhausted." Noct burrowed into his cocoon, bare shoulders rising like a small creature shrinking in its shell. "Don't you ever get tired?"

Ignis propped himself up on an elbow. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Well, you're probably on the news more than the emperor is," Noct whispered. "Before I left, our Intel said you were running the empire on your own while your dad was away."

"That isn't... quite true," Ignis said, trying not to shift under Noct's gaze.

"Not completely a lie, either, I bet." Noct brushed aside Ignis' bangs with his fingers, his touch surprisingly cool on Ignis' forehead. "It's a pretty heavy burden."

Ignis thought of Insomnia, a smoking ruin on the news, the reports of Noctis dead in the rubble, of King Regis made old before his time by the same Crystal Ignis' father now looked after in Gralea. "Somehow I feel as though you may know what that's like."

"Maybe." Noct had yet to draw his hand away. The air beneath the blanket was stifling and warm, but Ignis couldn't imagine dragging it down for something as inconsequential as air, not when Noctis was running a finger down the ridge of his cheekbone and eyeing the line of his neck, blue eyes half-lidded. 

Then he looked up, and Ignis froze as Noct's touch became more of a caress, holding the side of Ignis' cheek in one hand. His lips parted, and Ignis found himself leaning forward, closing the distance between them, chasing the warmth of Noct's shallow breath--

Which disappeared in a rush of cold air as Noctis, half the blankets, and a good portion of a sleeping bag went whirling out of view. Ignis sat up, blinking in alarm, as Gladio promptly manhandled the yelping, kicking prince into the spot between Gladio and Prompto. 

"What," Noct sputtered, through a mouthful of blanket and part of his shield's arm, "the fuck."

"You were close enough," Gladio said blithely, holding Noctis down by draping an impressively heavy thigh over his waist. For a man made of solid muscle, he was unnervingly flexible. "You're sleepin' between us tonight."

"I hate you," Noct spat. Gladio patted his back and turned to his phone. Noct looked to Prompto, who shrugged, then to Ignis.

Ignis took in his wild hair, his red face, his twitching body held down in a tangle of sheets and damp towels, and covered his face. The first laugh escaped him before he could stop it, and soon enough, Ignis was curled over his hands, tears springing to his eyes, laughing harder than he had in years.

"Huh," Gladio said, while Ignis gasped for breath through his fingers. "Guess you were right, Noct. He's human after all."


End file.
